By far, the hardest part of parenting for me so far has not been the sleep deprivation, or even the overstimulation, or the endless routines of meals and laundry and cleaning up.

It’s been discipline.

And I don’t mean just disciplining my kids, but also disciplining myself so I don’t explode into an unhinged, ragey, out-of-control tyrant.

People have different temperaments and bents. Some parents bend towards permissiveness. Some parents have more even temperaments that can absorb more noise and stimulation without losing their shit. Some parents default to anxiety. Some parents default to rage.

I have always had a temperament shaped like a porcupine– all spiky and poky. I respond very physically when disturbed; my entire body instinctively and instantly lashes out sharp needles whenever it senses a threat. And when you’re a parent…especially when you’re a stay-at-home parent of young kids…everything feels like a threat sometimes.

My primary emotion when poked is irritation and rage, which instantly transforms my body and expression and tone. I’ve always been quick to anger, quick to speak, quick to judge. And that’s the part of me that I’m really, really trying very hard to tame and temper, especially as I discipline my own kids. How can I disciple and shape them into gentle and kind human beings, if I myself, their most visible and present model, am lacking in self-discipline and self-control, gentleness and kindness?

I don’t face the risk of permissive parenting. But I do find myself defaulting to trying to dominate my kids and control their behavior, and using harsh and punitive ways, partly because of my temperament, and partly because of the way I was raised. It just feels natural and right, when my child is misbehaving, to simply box him in the ears, roar a command, and frighten him into behaving.

I don’t use spanking as a discipline tool– I think Proverbs 13:24 has been grossly misinterpreted, and besides, spanking simply isn’t very effective when my goal is whole-character discipleship– but corporal punishment is the model that’s been set for me, and I have to fight the impulse to raise my palm and smack my child over the head, just like my father did to me whenever I displeased him.

So already, as I’m disciplining my kids (well, really just Tov, as Woori isn’t even 2 yet), I’m also battling against my own temperament and parenting instincts. But what complicates my journey in parental discipline is the millions of voices out there telling me how to discipline and raise my kids.

As modern-day parents, we live in an online world that’s an endless universe full of glittering, glaring, sparkling, swirling, blasting parenting advice: scripts, rules, inspirations, and reels that crowd our mental space, leaving very little room for us to practice our own discernment and intuition.

Those voices are much louder and stronger and present than the still, gentle voice of the Holy Spirit. And because they’re all packed nice and tight in my head, I carry them with me like a thick book of parenting manual into every situation, which means at all times, I’m having dozens of voices correcting me, debating me, questioning me.

Case in point:

Every morning, I do Bible Time with my kids during breakfast. This morning, Tov took one look at the breakfast I served him– fried rice with pan-fried tofu and fruit– and erupted into outraged tears. He had the same breakfast yesterday, and he ate without complaints, even said it was yummy. But today, all of a sudden, the very sight of this breakfast offended him.

So he scrunched his face into a scowl, and screamed and screamed. “I don’t want bokkeumbap!” he shrieked, pushing his plate away. “I want white rice!”

I told him he did not need to eat the fried rice, but he cannot scream just because he didn’t like his food.

That’s a combination of two parenting advice I had picked up: Don’t force your child to eat if he doesn’t like it. Set the boundaries in a calm, neutral tone, and keep words minimal. OK. Done.

I then commenced with Bible Time as usual. I prayed. I opened up the Jesus Storybook Bible and started reading the chapter, but Tov kept screaming and screaming. He scooped up the rice and flung it on the table. He clenched his fists and pounded. I could not keep reading while he was screaming that high-pitched, ear-splitting screech.

“Hey!” I said sharply. “No screaming. You don’t have to eat it if you don’t want to.” I moved the plate away from him.

Well, guess I failed to keep my tone calm and neutral. My voice was a little sharper than I intended it to be, but also, I did have to raise my voice so he can hear me above his shrieks. And didn’t some parenting expert out there say we as parents should not be repeating ourselves? Guess I repeated myself. Gargh! Whatever. OK. Moving on.

I tried to keep on reading.

Tov then threw his spoon across the table.

OK, that’s it. He’s pushing boundaries.

I put the book down and looked at him. “You cannot throw things just because you’re angry. Pick up the spoon.”

He just screamed louder.

I remembered that when a child refuses to do something or ignores you, you need to physically move closer to him and guide him. So I got up and crouched next to Tov, and told him, “No throwing. Pick up the spoon.”

“NOOOOOO!!!!!” A scream that could have blasted my ear open like a coconut.

By now, my heart was racing so hard with rage that I could feel pounding in my ears. I was a hair’s width away from losing my cool. So I defaulted to our usual consequence for Tov: “OK, time out.”

He screamed and thrashed and kicked, “No no no no! I don’t want time out!”

“Then pick up the spoon!”

More screaming. It’s like a ballistic missile attack on my ears and nervous system. Everything inside me was going bang, bang, pop, pop! I grabbed him by the arm, and he let his body drop like dead weight, so I had to basically drag him to his room. I shut the door and locked it. And then I walked back to my seat, head and heart and ears pounding, while Tov kicked and banged and screamed at the door.

I sat back down. And already, dozens of voices were chattering in my head:

“Hey, what happened to gentleness?”

“A gentle word turns away wrath.”

“That was harsh.”

“Did you have to drag him like a rag doll?”

“You just repeated yourself three times.”

“Was your tone neutral?”

“Was your facial expression neutral?”

“Is time out even effective? Wasn’t there a reel somewhere that condemned time outs as ineffective and punitive?”

“What about NATURAL CONSEQUENCES versus punishment!”

“All time out has done is provoke him more.”

“He’s just dysregulated. You’re punishing him for being dysregulated.”

“You just shut him in his room for your own convenience sake, because you couldn’t handle his screaming.”

“It’s all about setting good boundaries!”

“What’s even the point of Bible Time, when it’s rife with conflict and tears? What a joke.”

“I am gentle and lowly in heart, Jesus said. Not just sometimes, but all times.”

“WHAT WOULD JESUS DO?”

I internally wrung my hands at the voices. Yes, yes! I did time out because I was getting dysregulated. What I really wanted to do was slap him in the face, not once, but many times until he stopped screaming, and I had to physically remove him so I can calm the hell down. Is that wrong?

I tried to shut the voices and decided to just finish reading the bible chapter to Woori, who was cheerfully playing peek-a-boo with her pear under her placemat. And of course, that day’s chapter just happened to be about how Jesus loves the pure hearts of little children. Well, ain’t that just perfect.

Once I finished reading, I got back up and went to Tov’s room. He was hollering underneath the crack of the door. “Are you ready to join us?” I said. “Are you ready to pick that spoon back up?”

He agreed, so I opened the door, and we walked back to the dining table. He picked up his spoon. I gave him back his plate, reminding him that it’s up to him whether he eats it or not, but that’s what we have for breakfast. He took a nibble of his tofu. He seemed calmer and meeker now.

We sang Slugs and Bugs’ “Fruits of the Spirit” song instead of our hymn of the day, because I felt like we needed something more upbeat. I pointed out “joy” and “self-control” among the fruits of the Spirit and told him joy means to be grateful for what he has, and self-control means refraining from screaming and throwing things even when we are angry and frustrated. I also pointed out gentleness and kindness.

“Were you being gentle and kind when you screamed and threw the spoon?” I asked.

He nodded his head.

“Uh, no, you weren’t being gentle and kind, Tov.”

Then I started wondering if I was being too legalistic. What if I was treating this as a moral scorecard for him to tick off, as though you can just will yourself into being a “good Christian?”

“Where’s Jesus?” I asked.

“In my heart,” he said.

Yes, I told him, because Jesus lives in his heart, Jesus can help him grow those fruits of the spirit– love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, and self-control. Tov looked at me, but I couldn’t tell if he even understood a word I said.

And then the voices in my head piped up again:

“Well, well, what about you? Where’s your fruits of the spirit?”

“OK, OK, stop preaching and moralizing already. You know what that did for you!”

“But is time out going to teach him these things?”

Shut up, shut up, shut up. This is not helping right now.

We did the rest of our Bible Time, and then since it’s Tuesday, it was time to drop the kids off at school. It was already past 9 am, and we were supposed to be at school by now. I looked around the house, and I saw rice on the table, ripe, sticky pear smeared everywhere, toys scattered across the dining room and the playroom, and remembered I still had to pack their backpacks and towels and load everything and everyone into the car. Oh, and Woori just pooped.

I told Tov to clean up the toys, and he ignored me, absorbed in playing with his cars.

I snapped. “TOV!!!” I yelled at him.

He startled, and then put his head down on the table and cried. Then ran off to find Daddy. (David later told me Tov told him I was being mean to him, and that he didn’t do anything wrong. Uh huh.)

Well, the voices in my head had a field day with that one.

And you know what’s the cherry on top? After I dropped off the kids, on my drive home, my podcast started playing an episode by Sally Clarkson on the importance of gentleness in motherhood.

JUST SHOOT ME IN THE HEAD, WILL YOU?

Are you exhausted and exasperated just hearing the train of thoughts in my head? I am. This is part of the reason why I find parenting so draining– it’s that at every moment, even the moments that are so intensely personal, private, and necessary for nuance, I have an outsized jury of voices judging, arguing, philosophizing, preaching at me.

Did I do a perfect job trying to discipline Tov this morning?

No.

Could I have been gentler?

Yes.

Did time out work?

I have no freaking idea. I have no freaking idea if anything I’m doing is “right.”

And that’s the issue: I keep searching for the “right” thing to do and say.

I want the perfect script. I want to be told exactly what to say, what to do, and be promised excellent children. And there are a lot of programs, books, influencers (Christian influencers are the most toxic) and false theology out there promising exactly that. As though parenting a human child is a math problem you can calculate and solve. As though parenting is like baking a cake– you just need to right ingredients and a good recipe, and out comes a perfectly baked cake! As though parenting is a moral equation– if I check all these moral boxes in myself, then my children will be the moral equivalent of my moral efforts.

Parenting is hard because there is no “right” script. Parenting is hard because it’s supposed to be hard, and I sometimes think if it’s so hard, then I must be doing something wrong, or I’m incapable, or my kids have something wrong with them. Parenting is hard because even the one thing I’m supposed to have control over– myself– I have a hard time controlling.

And parenting is hard because ultimately, it’s this organic, continuous process of dependence on the Lord, and hearing His voice rather than the voices of “experts” in my head. Those voices are loud and cacophonous, and they drown out the most important voice of all. Instead of practicing listening to God, I’m rifling through a thick binder of parenting advice and tips from people who don’t know my child, who don’t know me, who don’t know our family dynamics and values and circumstances. People who I allowed to turn my child into a project, instead of a living, breathing human being who cannot be willed into a shape that pleases me.

This is what I’m working on: Clicking off those voices. I want a mental reset. I want to look at my children the way God sees them. I want to work on faithfulness, not perfection. When my head is pounding and my temper is rising, I want to hear that still, gentle voice that reminds me:

“I got this. You don’t have to do this perfectly right. Because I got your kids. And I got you.”